Critical Thinking of Engineering Students as an Essential Skill in a Competence-Based Approach

In a competence-based approach, development of soft skills and higher order skills becomes one of the priorities of higher education institutions. At the same time, employers prefer candidates who are proficient in these skills. The ISHEL project was the first attempt to measure the critical thinking of Russian engineering students nationwide. The main issue of this research was to study differences in teaching practices in elite and non-elite higher education institutions of the Russian Federation and their relations with the level of critical thinking development among students in the third year of engineering specialties. It was hypothesized that the active style of teaching contributes to the development of critical thinking, and the connection of pedagogical practices and the level of critical thinking development is higher among the students of the third year of specialties «Computer Science» than among students of the specialties «Electrical Engineering». The sample consisted of 1131 students studying in 2 professional groups CS and EE of 17 specialties in 34 Russian universities. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in the research. The results of the research showed that the active style of teaching doesn’t have significant correlation with the level of critical thinking development, while passive teaching practices have a negative significant correlation with critical thinking of third-year students. Similar phenomena are observed in the context of enlarged specialties groups. Thus, the role of the university in development of critical thinking of students of engineering specialties, formation of which is a necessary condition in the framework of federal state educational standards for higher education, was insignificant. At the same time, students of national research universities benefit in this situation due to the scientific-practical and design-research activities implemented in these universities.